FORCE: A Bad Boy Sports Romance Page 23

  "Noooo," she pouted, but opened her mouth obediently to allow him to feed her a few more fries.

  Doctor D. was suddenly at his side. "How much did she have?" the older man asked. You could hear the medical training rushing back to him.

  J. racked his brain. "I don't think that much. Two shots and a beer maybe?"

  "That'd be enough for someone who doesn't drink much." Doctor D. looked at him with his sharp eyes. "She needs to go home, J. You okay to ride?"

  J. stood up from his stool, testing. He slid his arms under Emmy, catching her before she slid to the floor. "Yeah I think so. Emmy?"

  "Hmmm?" She smiled sleepily up at him.

  "Can you tell me where you live?"

  She pouted. "You're taking me back to him?"

  "Him? Your roommate?"

  "Not...roommate. Fiancé."

  J. felt his heart sink. Fuck. Of course she was engaged. If he had met her earlier he would have snapped her up too. He punched himself in the thigh again, willing his desire to cool, but her soft, yielding body against his was not helping.

  Doctor D. picked up her pocketbook and pulled out her leather wallet. "Damn, her ID says she live on Rittenhouse."

  J. looked down sharply. She was engaged and she was rich. He felt like a complete fool. Angrily he hauled her to her feet. "Let's go Emilia. You need to hold on to me, okay?"

  "Mmmm," she hummed, but followed him out the door. He deposited her on the back of his bike without a word, then screeched into traffic without checking his mirrors.

  He was a fool. A damned fool. She was a spoiled little princess who just wanted an adventure. All those feeling he had had while they talked, that connection, it had all been in his head. She just wanted to come down out of her palace and slum it for a while.

  His anger made him ride faster. But when he felt her grip loosen, he willed himself to slow down. He was angry, but he didn't want to kill her.

  But when he turned onto Walnut St. he had no choice but to come to a screeching halt. Traffic was still snarled in spite of the late hour. Posh customers were still pouring out of the clubs and high-end restaurants. They milled about on the sidewalks and spilled into the crosswalks. J. could feel their eyes on him and saw himself through their frightened eyes. Big black biker with a slumped over drunk white girl draped on his seat. It was his first day as a free man and yet he felt like a criminal all over again. He revved his engine at some gawkers in anger and three of them jumped back in terror. He was debating just pulling up onto the sidewalk and plowing through them when the light finally changed.

  Emmy's building was right on the square, overlooking the leafy expanse of Rittenhouse Park. J. had grown up in Philadelphia, but this was not his Philadelphia. This was a paradise made only for the rich.

  It hurt more than it should have to know Emmy was one of them.

  "Okay girl, this is your stop, time to get off." Emmy was slumped against his back. He could feel her soft breasts pressing against his back but was too keyed up to enjoy it. "Emilia, wake the fuck up," he growled.

  She moaned a little, but stayed plastered against him.

  "For fuck's sake." J. turned around. Grasping her around the waist, he half wrestled, half carried her across the wide sidewalk in front of her building.

  "Outta the way," he growled at a startled looking old man who nearly walked into them.

  The lobby doors slid smoothly open and he felt the blast of air conditioning hit him in the face. "Who are you? Is that Miss Hawthorne?" a voice boomed across the marble hallway.

  J. saw the badge first, then the pistol second. "Stay right there and put your hands up!" the guard called. He was aiming at J.'s head.

  "If I put my hands up, I'm gonna drop the girl." J. knew he needed to keep calm.

  The guard seemed befuddled for a moment. "Then move slowly."

  "Where do you expect me to go?" J. saw the guard wasn't moving to call the cops, so he relaxed slightly. "Hey look man, I'm not looking for trouble. This girl's ID says she lives here. You recognize her?"

  "Of course I do," the guard spat, but lowered his gun slightly.

  "You know where she lives?"

  "Yes of course."

  "Then why don't you come over here and help me make sure she gets home okay. Sound good?"

  The guard looked at him suspiciously. Then he sighed and holstered his gun. "What happened to her?" he asked, with some concern.

  "Had a bit too much to drink."

  "She was drinking with...you?"

  J. bristled. "Look asshole, I got her home in one piece, didn't I?"

  The guard stepped back and looked him up and down. "Sons of Steel, huh? I remember you guys from back when I was on the force. How the fuck did Miss Hawthorne end up with one of you?"

  J. had had enough. "Guess you'll have to ask her that, won't you." He dragged Emmy over to the bank of elevators. "Get her up to her place. I'm done here."

  "Yeah, I think you'd better be." The guard took Emmy into his arms and pressed the button. "Get out of my building and stay out."

  "Not a fucking problem," J. spat.

  He felt the guard's eyes on him through the door and all the way out to where he had parked his bike on the sidewalk.

  "Fuck all of you," he growled to the people crowded around it.

  Kicking the bike to life, he roared away from their stares. He didn't need this shit. This was the exact opposite of keeping his head down. Causing a scene with a former Philly police officer was something he'd have to tell Teach about. It would probably earn him some lumps. He would ask for one knock to the head.

  Maybe that would knock loose the memory of her lips on his.

  Chapter 12

  Emmy

  The first sound I was aware of was a crash from the kitchen. The echoing clatter pierced my eardrums and I clapped my hands over my ears.

  I was in my own bed, under the sheets. Rolling over in confusion caused a sudden pain to knife through my head. "Oh my god, fuck," I moaned out loud. The words were thick and muffled. I was parched and nauseous at the same time.

  Why was I hungover?

  I tried rolling over again, and this time was successful in making it on to my side. I rested for a moment, waiting for the spinning to stop before I opened my eyes. Tentatively, I peeked through one slitted eye.

  My box was upturned and the contents spread across the floor on my side of the bed. I sat up in alarm, the memory of last night flooding me with panic. Robert hadn't come home and I had gone crazy. I had gotten drunk and kissed a biker. And somehow I had ended up back in my bed.

  And Robert knew. Robert knew everything.

  Another crash from the kitchen shattered my composure. It was followed by another echoing boom, then a clatter as if all the silverware had been dropped at once. Through the pounding in my head I realized dully that Robert was punishing me.

  I lay carefully back down and slid my head under the pillow to block out the light. Robert had opened all the shades, and the dawn light was pouring in through our tinted windows. I had never hated our twenty-story view more than I did right now.

  But I hated myself more.

  "Goddammit Emmy," I groaned to myself.

  The effort of speaking hurt my throat. I remembered the taste of the cheap whiskey on my tongue, how it had burned my throat raw.

  How could I have been so stupid? The one cardinal rule in my life was never to rock the boat. Fighting back only caused problems and made things worse. Why hadn't I remembered that? What had possessed me to think I could get away with openly defying Robert? I was in for a world of hurt now.

  I gripped the sheets tightly as I wracked my throbbing brain. I had no idea what to do next. The idea of going down to apologize made me sick. Robert would assault me with questions. He would cross-examine every minute action, twisting my words around into greater and greater betrayal until I was no longer able to hold on to my own thoughts. I would give up trying to explain, and just let him tell the story of how I had failed him. My
story would become his, and I would be punished for what he said I had done.

  Maybe it would be a week's worth of silent treatment. I had gone through that before, tiptoeing along the edge of rooms, wondering when he would acknowledge me again. Maybe it would be the food thing again, it had been a while since he denied me anything to eat without his permission. Maybe I would have all my clothes taken away again.

  At least this time it was summer and it wouldn't be so cold and drafty by the windows.

  The fear of anticipation rippled through me, but in the back of all of it was the dimmest memory. A memory of a moment, one single moment from last night. How J. had just let me be. We had sat together, talking without agenda. He had listened without appearing to wait for his turn to speak. He didn't dismiss what I said with a scoff and a sarcastic remark. With him it had felt...easy.

  I smacked myself in the head quickly, pushing out the disloyal thoughts. Bright lights flashed behind my eyelids on impact and I moaned again in spite of myself. I needed water.

  Moving slowly and deliberately, I pushed myself up in the bed and swung my feet to the floor. I waited, balling up the sheets in my fists, until the nausea passed and I could stand without falling. Using the bed for leverage, I made my way around towards the master bath. When I ran out of bed to lean on, I lunged for the wall, hitting myself in the shoulder and jarring my tender head. I heard a sharp exhale behind me.

  He was in the room, watching me as I made my labored way to the bathroom. I didn't turn. I didn't need to see him to know how his eyes blazed with fury and disappointment. I didn't want to see.

  His voice in my head told me everything I needed to know about how terrible I was. What the hell did you think you were doing? Are you some sort of cheap slut? What gives you the right to just throw my love away like that? What is wrong with you?

  With the unsaid words clanging in my shattered skull like a bell, I stumbled the last two steps into the bathroom. He made no move to help me, but I knew he was still there watching. I ran the tap and filled the water glass to the brim.

  The cold water hit my stomach like a rock. I glugged until my belly was taut and sloshing. I could feel the cells in my body come back to life as soon as the water hit them.

  Feeling marginally better, I opened the medicine cabinet to look for the Advil I always kept on the third shelf.

  It was gone. I stared dully at the space where it had been yesterday. The Advil was gone, the Tylenol was gone, the Aleve, even the baby aspirin Robert took for his heart was gone.

  He had taken every painkiller and hidden them from me.

  Now I would have to ask him to let me have some.

  My stomach roiled, rejecting the water I had guzzled. I bent over the sink and heaved and spat. But nothing came up. I wasn't going to be sick. I was just terrified.

  "Robert?" My voice was small and beseeching. I caught my cringing reflection in the mirror and hated myself.

  He didn't come, but I could hear his tread on the floorboards as he stepped closer to me. He was ready to hear my apologies. He was ready to mete out whatever justice he saw fit to give.

  The anger that had propelled me out of our building and hurled me into the arms of an honest to god biker came roaring back like a freight train. The blood pulsed in my ears, deafening me to the sound of anything but my own thoughts.

  Fuck you, you asshole.

  I saw myself in the mirror and I cringed again, certain he could hear me. But the heat of my rage burned through the hangover and I found I could stand upright. I swished another glass of water in my mouth and turned to the door. Without crossing the threshold, I peeked out at him.

  He wasn't looking towards me. His patrician profile was turned towards the windows, the early morning light casting him in high relief. I could see the muscle at his temple working as he ground his teeth furiously. That I had expected. His eyes were what startled me.

  They were afraid.

  He glanced towards the bathroom and saw me looking at him. I saw a flicker of doubt cross his face, then a sudden rage at being caught in his vulnerability

  Then those flickers were gone, replaced with a bland smile. "You sick, Emilia?"

  I stepped back. My box was strewn across the floor. The painkillers had been hidden. He deliberately woke me as painfully as possible.

  He knew exactly why I wasn't feeling well.

  He moved towards me and I stepped back again. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. I wasn't ready for him to be kind. That was the worst thing he could do.

  I stepped back again, catching the heel of my foot against the base of the toilet. I sat down with a thud and looked up at him in confusion. Should I ignore what he said and make my apologies? Or should I follow his lead and pretend?

  He stood over me, looming, and looked down with bland concern. "You don't look well. Why don't you lie down and I'll bring you something for your head?"

  "Um, okay." He waited. "Thank you, honey."

  He nodded and turned away. I sat on the toilet in a daze until he reappeared at the doorway with a huge tumbler of water and a fistful of Advil.

  "You should be lying down," he admonished me. "Since your head hurts and all."

  "How do you know my head hurts?" I managed to squeak.

  "Don't you know I know everything about you, Emilia?" He set the glass and medicine down, then crouched down in front of me, hitching up his work pants beforehand so they wouldn't crease.

  "I can tell what you're thinking. I know you better than you know yourself." He took my wrists in his hands, circling them with his fingers. "That's why we work together so well. We know each other. We know what to expect from each other. And we know what would happen if we were ever separated."

  "What would happen?" I whispered.

  He stood up and kissed me on the forehead. "I don't even want to think about it," he said airily.

  He took my hand and led me back to bed. I crawled in dutifully and closed my eyes, but he didn't leave. I slowed my breathing, forcing myself to relax, but he still stood over me. Trying harder, I willed myself into an even rhythm, but I was sure the thudding of my heart in my throat gave me away.

  I was deeply, deeply afraid.

  Chapter 13

  J.

  It really was the perfect place for a biker clubhouse.

  Steel Cycles stood alone in the wasteland under the overpasses. The Frankford El and 1-95 converged overheard in a crashing clatter that drowned out any noises the bikes made. Their only neighbors had packed up years ago, leaving Steel Cycles as the lone sentinel standing amid the sea of abandoned, trash-strewn lots. The Philadelphia police ignored the area, content to let the bikers rule their little noisy corner of the world. So long as the Sons of Steel stayed here, they were pretty much left alone.

  J. flopped onto his back and stared at the clubhouse ceiling. Their bunkhouse was a small section of the garage strewn with more cots than members. Teach ran a tight ship as President, and over the years the number of Sons had dwindled down to just the core six. J., MacDougal and Case lived at the clubhouse full time. Crash split his time between the bunkhouse and his filthy bachelor pad up near Temple. Doctor D. lived alone in a studio in Port Richmond, unwilling to venture out much since losing his old lady to breast cancer. And Teach and his old lady, Mallory, had a building in Kensington they were renting out to bohemian art students. They were making a killing.

  And as far as J. was concerned, that was enough. The more people you let into your life, the more chances there were that they'd fuck you over.

  He knew he should get some sleep. He had to do the delivery tomorrow and wanted to be up early to take the chopper out on a run before he let it go. The longer the ride the longer he could give himself to clear his thoughts.

  Let the wind blow the memory of Emmy away.

  His traitorous desire reawakened the minute he allowed himself to think her name. J. turned to his side, grateful that he was the only one in the bunkhouse. The rest of the club was still o
ut celebrating his parole, and wouldn't be back until the early morning. But after leaving Emmy in the hands of that racist guard, J. hadn't felt like partying. He would have gone looking for a fight. Someone would have said something, or looked at him wrong, or breathed too near him and that would be the end of them. The red rage would have taken over, and someone would have had to pay.

  Instead he pushed through the rage and come out the other side. If he wasn't so angry, he could have been proud.

  Instead he cursed himself again as a fool. He squeezed his eyes shut and counted backwards from ten. His breathing slowed as he concentrated on the rush of traffic above him. Prison had acclimated him to falling asleep amidst a din of noise. He listened to the whoosh of the El on the tracks above him and calculated that it was the last run up to Frankford before the line closed. He really needed to sleep.

  But the memory of Emmy's breasts pressed into his back would not be denied. Sighing heavily, J. slid a hand into his boxers. Quick before his brothers came home and caught him. He would allow himself this one last memory of pleasure before shoving Emmy forever from his mind.

  Then he could finally sleep.

  *****

  J.'s eyes shot open to the sound of the rolling garage door being lifted. The east facing door let a blast of hot summer sunshine into the clubhouse and directly into his tender eyeballs.

  "Are you shitting me?" he groaned, clapping his arm over his eyes.

  "Sorry man, it's fucking hot as balls in here already," Case grumbled, voice thick and heavy with sleep. "When we gonna get that air conditioner?"

  "Maybe when you do some actual work that brings money in?" J. retorted, rolling to face the wall. His dreams had been scattered and disturbed, and his mouth felt like he had chewed on an old sock. Now was not the time to listen to his best friend bitching about the heat.

  "Told you, I'm working on something big," Case sighed and flopped back onto his cot. His huge, Nordic frame made the springs creak alarmingly. "So shut the fuck up."